


shattered windows and the sound of drums

by amethyst__angel (crystallized)



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: Gen, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-10 01:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/93724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystallized/pseuds/amethyst__angel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>shattered windows and the sound of drums / people couldn't believe what i'd become.  Coldplay' Viva la Vida + timey wimey thinky thoughts.  Written pre-End of Time/CoE.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shattered windows and the sound of drums

See, here's the thing. It isn't possible for a human - for any being, actually - to take all of that energy in and survive. Rose couldn't do it, Donna couldn't do it. The Doctor couldn't even do it.

Jack did it.

For a long, long time, the Doctor tried to figure out how that worked.

 

_i used to rule the world  
seas would rise when i gave the word  
now in the morning i sleep alone  
sweep the streets i used to own_

 

In the future as in the past as in the present: Jack is off somewhere having an adventure, the Doctor is saving a world, and the Master is destroying one.

Three immortals, locked in epic battle.

Koschei and Theta grew up together.

Jack just kind of showed up.

 

_i used to roll the dice  
feel the fear in my enemy's eyes  
listen as the crowd would sing:  
now the old king is dead! long live the king!_

 

The Paradox Machine allowed for more than just the Toclafane. Of course, they were sort of the biggest priority of trouble. So if the Doctor and the Master both felt, constantly, like there was something screwy going on, they never spoke of it, just blamed it on the Paradox Machine. Time Lords hate paradoxes. Even the Master.

When the Doctor's ninth incarnation tried to take the heart of the TARDIS into himself, he found that his body couldn't take it. Each regeneration has different innate qualities and abilities, but all Time Lords begin to lose their ability to control the Time Vortex towards the end of the regenerative cycle.

Lucy shot the third body in the Master's new regenerative cycle.

 

_one minute i held the key  
next the walls were closed on me  
and i discovered that my castles stand  
upon pillars of salt, and pillars of sand_

 

Many years after the Master refused to regenerate, the Doctor, some time after his tenth regeneration, along with Jack's Torchwood team, figured out how to restore Donna's memories and keep her safe. The process involved a DNA transfer from the Doctor to Donna, and Jack's life-force-kiss to sustain her body, to feed her the energy from the TARDIS to cause her to regenerate into a fully Gallifreyan Time Lord body.

And thus Donna became a Time Lord, regenerated into a blonde woman that she recognized from the telly.

And instantly fled through time and space, with all the knowledge of what she had to do.

 

_i hear jerusalem bells are ringing  
roman cavalry choirs are singing  
be my mirror my sword and shield  
my missionaries in a foreign field_

 

The Face of Boe, a being of great psychic power, told the Doctor's tenth regeneration that he was not alone. Not long afterwards, he, Martha, and Jack encountered Yana, who would discover his identity and regenerate into the third of the Master's new incarnations.

Lucy picked up the ring after he was burnt on the pyre.

The Doctor couldn't watch over the universe forever all on his own, after all. The Time Lords needed to be restored.

 

_for some reason i can't explain  
once you go there was never  
never an honest word  
that was when i ruled the world_

 

It was unfortunate, then, that the Master was in the relative timestream of the newly-founded Time Agency when he regernerated into a fifth body. Even more unfortunate that the Doctor wasn't. Theta would have come to save him, bleeding heart and everything. But Koschei, he didn't know where Theta could be.

The Time Agency took his battered, post-regneration body into their fold. As soon as he realized where he was, he began plotting.

There are no mirrors anywhere in the Time Agency's headquarters. There is no room for vanity, no room for self-confidence. But the Master was just biding his time, waiting to get back up to full strength, to make enough disciples, convince enough people of his power and his purpose. Then they would take over the Agency.

He didn't really count on Alyx.

 

_it was the wicked and wild wind  
blew down the doors to let me in  
shattered windows and the sound of drums  
people couldn't believe what i'd become_

 

Alyx: blond, gorgeous, full of fire and snark and passion and anger. The Master was well aquainted with the type, and was more than pleased when he and Alyx were made partners.

They spent two years as partners, fighting and fucking their way across the galaxy, while, the whole time, the Master waited for the opportune moment. It only took a year before he told Alyx what he was planning. Allies are always good to have, he reasoned.

They returned to the Agency HQ exactly one year after Alyx and the Master became partners in crime as well as partners as Agents and partners in some twisted form of commitment. It could have been mistaken for love, if the Master had any room to love anyone other than himself.

It also might have helped if he hadn't seen Alyx with his thirty silver pieces the day after he returned.

Alyx kissed him - and then the world went black.

 

_revolutionaries wait  
for my head on a silver plate  
just a puppet on a lonely string  
oh who would ever want to be king_

 

He woke up with a whole history of memories missing, wearing a coat and simple clothing, a Time Agency wriststrap on his arm. The Agency let him read his file, gave him everything he owned prior to being shot and going into a coma. They gave him to a boy named Alyx for his partner, and he fell in love, hard. They spent five years in a time loop together, and laughed and conned their way around the galaxy, betraying each other left and right to have reasons for the angry sex that he loved so much.

They got separated, and he found himself on Earth, in the second World War. He watched a Captain die, and, deciding to do the right thing for once, took up his name and his office. And helped win the war.

Until he saw a pretty blonde girl hanging from a barrage balloon, in a Union Jack t-shirt, looking completely out of her place and time. Of course he rescued her; he'd always had a thing for blondes.

She took him to meet the Doctor.

 

_i hear jerusalem bells are ringing  
roman cavalry choirs are singing  
be my mirror my sword and shield  
my missionaries in a foreign field_

 

The rest, as they say, is history. Or, in this case, it might be history, but it's the present, and the future as well. It's happening as we speak.

Here's the thing. No true human can hold the Time Vortex in themselves, even a piece of it. Rose's gift should have killed Jack, no matter how little power she pushed in, no matter how strong her desire to keep him alive. Human is human.

The only being in the known universe that could hold any piece of the Time Vortex in itself without dying would be a Time Lord in the early stages of their regeneration cycle.

The TARDIS didn't reject Jack because he's a fixed point in time.

She rejected him because of the terrible things he'd done to her, that he would do to her soon, in every stream of time. By rejecting Jack so strongly, she lost control, and the travellers ended up at the end of the universe with Yana. And Martha saw the watch.

Funny how Time works itself out.

 

_for some reason i can't explain  
i know saint peter won't call my name  
never an honest word  
but that was when i ruled the world_


End file.
